Luang Namtha, Laos

Video with images of Luang Namtha a thinly populated province in the northwestern part of Laos near the Chinese border. In the area live various ethnic groups. The concentration of tribes and minorities is much larger than in other provinces. Prevailing minorities in the province are Akha, Lenten, Hmong and Yao. Many tribal villages lie scattered along the route of Xieng Kok to Muang Singh. The minorities in these villages live in isolation and preserve their customs. High up in the mountains close to Xieng Kok is the Akha village of Ban Ta Sommai. Down the mountains travelling south is a Lenten village and a Hmong village. The Yao village of Oudom Sin is close to Muang Singh. In the environment are various other settlements of Akha people. The Akha wear cotton clothes woven by hand. Constantly women and girls are busy spinning cotton: even on their way to the fields or to the market place they have a coil in their hands. They dye the cotton in indigo blue and black and decorate it with ornaments. The women wear a cap on their heads trimmed with ornaments and coins. They wear a waistcoat on top of a vest, a skirt and leggings. They live in houses without windows built on poles or on the ground. They live the Way of the Akha, a coherent construction of traditions and habits regulating ordinary life. They succeeded in preserving their traditional way of life. But because of increasing contacts with the outside world their culture is under pressure. The Lenten are closely related to the Hmong and the Yao. But in contrast to their relatives the Lenten only live in the lower river valleys. They cultivate rice on irrigated fields. The extended families live together in large bamboo houses covered by a rotan roof. Every house has stacks of firewood in front and pigs root the ground. The name Lenten comes from the colour of their dress. Men as well as women wear cotton clothes dyed blue in indigo. The women wear a silver coin in their hair and have no eyebrows which are depilated at the beginning of puberty. The Lenten are excellent paper manufacturers. They mix the marrow of a bamboo plant with water of the river into pulp. They spread it out on a cotton frame and let it dry. The result is high quality paper. The Hmong used to live in the high mountains where red poppies thrive well. The poppies are an ingredient for the production of opium, the most important means of support for the Hmong. Many of them left the country after the communist take-over in 1975 when the communist government planned to relocate them in lower territories. The official reason was to restrict the cultivation of opium, but political motives also played an important role in this decision. The houses in a Hmong village are made of wood or bamboo and built on the ground instead of poles. The Hmong are divided in subgroups like the flower Hmong and the black Hmong because of the colour of their dress. The women wear a black cotton waistcoat, a blue skirt down to the knee